American Conservatory Theater
Encyclopedia
American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) is a large non-profit theater company in San Francisco, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, that offers both classical and contemporary theater productions. A.C.T. was founded in 1965 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...

 in conjunction with the Pittsburgh Playhouse
Pittsburgh Playhouse
Pittsburgh Playhouse is Point Park University's performing arts center located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It houses three performance spaces and is home to The Rep, Point Park's resident professional theatre company, as well as three student companies—Conservatory Theatre Company, Conservatory...

 and Carnegie Tech
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....

 by theatre and opera director William Ball
William Ball (stage director)
William Gormaly Ball was an American stage director and founder of the American Conservatory Theatre . He was awarded the Drama Desk Vernon Rice Award in 1959 for his production of Chekhov's Ivanov and was nominated for a Tony Award in 1965 for his production of Molière's Tartuffe, starring...

. By invitation from San Francisco philanthropists and officials, Ball relocated the company to San Francisco and astonished the theatre world by presenting twenty-seven fully staged productions in rotating repertory, in two different theatres, during the first 40-week season. San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

critic Paine Knickerbocker acclaimed Ball's opening performance of Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...

's Tartuffe
Tartuffe
Tartuffe is a comedy by Molière. It is one of his most famous plays.-History:Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664...

as "a screaming, bellowing unbelievable triumph."

A.C.T.'s original twenty-seven member acting company featured the talents of René Auberjonois
René Auberjonois
René Victor Auberjonois was a post-Impressionist Swiss painter and one of the leading Swiss artists of the 20th century.-Biography:...

, Peter Donat
Peter Donat
Peter Donat is a Canadian-American actor known for his roles in American television.-Early life:Donat was born Pierre Collingwood Donat in Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada, the son of Marie and Philip Ernst Donat, a landscape gardener. His uncle was British actor Robert Donat...

, Richard Dysart
Richard Dysart
Richard A. Dysart is an American actor, perhaps best known for his role as Leland McKenzie on the NBC legal drama L.A. Law....

, Michael Learned
Michael Learned
Michael Learned is an American actress known for her role as Olivia Walton on The Waltons.-Personal life:Learned was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Elizabeth Duane "Betti" and Bruce Learned, a diplomat. Her maternal grandfather was an attaché for the United States Embassy in Rome...

, Ruth Kobart
Ruth Kobart
Ruth Kobart was an American performer, whose six-decade career encompassed opera, Broadway musical theatre, regional theatre, films, and television.-Life and career:...

, Paul Shenar
Paul Shenar
Paul Shenar was an American actor.-Career:Shenar became involved in theater at an early age, partaking in the local Milwaukee playhouse productions. After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the United States Air Force. Following his military career he began acting again...

, Charles Siebert
Charles Siebert
Charles Siebert is an American actor and television director. As an actor he is best known for his role as Dr. Stanley Riverside II on Trapper John, M.D. which he portrayed from 1979-1986...

, Ken Ruta, and Kitty Winn
Kitty Winn
Kitty Winn is an award-winning American actress.- Early life and career :Winn was born in Washington, D.C. She spent much of her childhood time traveling to China, India and Japan....

 among many others. Ball's mid-1970s productions of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, starring Marc Singer
Marc Singer
Marc Singer is a Canadian-born American actor best known for his roles in the Beastmaster film series and as Mike Donovan in the original 1980s TV series V.-Personal life:...

, and Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac (play)
Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. Although there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, the play bears very scant resemblance to his life....

, starring Peter Donat
Peter Donat
Peter Donat is a Canadian-American actor known for his roles in American television.-Early life:Donat was born Pierre Collingwood Donat in Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada, the son of Marie and Philip Ernst Donat, a landscape gardener. His uncle was British actor Robert Donat...

 and Marsha Mason
Marsha Mason
Marsha Mason is an American actress and television director.She received four Academy Award nominations as Best Actress for her performances in Cinderella Liberty, The Goodbye Girl, Chapter Two, and Only When I Laugh. She is also known for starring in the 1986 film Heartbreak Ridge.-Life:Mason was...

 were televised by PBS and are available on video.

In the mid-1980s Ball, suffering from exhaustion and under accusations of financial mismanagement, was forced to relinquish his post as artistic director. He was succeeded by A.C.T. founding member and stage director Edward Hastings, who revived the company's fortunes until the Geary Theatre was severely damaged by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The company continued performing in a variety of San Francisco venues while laying the groundwork for its restoration.

Since 1992, Carey Perloff
Carey Perloff
Carey Elizabeth Perloff is an American theater director and playwright. She has been the artistic director of American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco since 1992.- Biography :...

 has served as the Artistic Director of A.C.T., A.C.T. is now financially secure and has achieved continued acclaim for its work. In 2007, A.C.T. released a cast album of Perloff's production of the Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...

 and Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...

 musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 Happy End
Happy End (musical)
Happy End is a surrealistic three-act musical comedy by Kurt Weill, Elisabeth Hauptmann, and Bertolt Brecht which first opened in Berlin at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm on September 2, 1929. It closed after seven performances...

, produced and mixed by Lucas Arts studios. It includes the full score and is the first English language recording of this musical.

A.C.T.'s founder's vision was for it to be both a theater company and acting school. The conservatory currently offers a wide range of classes and is accredited to grant Master of Fine Arts degrees for actors. Its MFA program is extremely competitive, admitting only eight students per year among hundreds who audition. It was ranked by US News & World Report as one of the top five actor training programs in the U.S., along with schools like Juilliard, Yale, and NYU. The current director of the conservatory is Melissa Smith. Among the many notable alumni of the MFA program are Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and film producer. He first rose to prominence when he joined the cast of the medical drama, St. Elsewhere, playing Dr...

, Annette Bening
Annette Bening
Annette Carol Bening is an American actress. Bening is a four-time Oscar nominee for her roles in The Grifters, American Beauty, Being Julia and The Kids Are All Right, winning Golden Globe Awards for the latter two films...

, Benjamin Bratt
Benjamin Bratt
Benjamin Bratt is an American actor. He is most famous for his role as Rey Curtis on the TV series Law & Order; and his appearances in the movies Blood in Blood Out, Miss Congeniality, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Traffic, and Piñero.-Early life:Bratt was born in San Francisco, California,...

, Carlos Bernard
Carlos Bernard
Carlos Bernard is an American actor, best known for his role as Tony Almeida in 24.-Biography:Bernard received a Master of Fine Arts degree from American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco after attending Illinois State University.He performed in A.C.T...

, Amy Irving
Amy Irving
Amy Davis Irving is an American actress, known for her roles in the films Crossing Delancey, The Fury, Carrie, and Yentl as well as acclaimed roles on Broadway and Off-Broadway. She has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Golden Globes, and has won an Obie award...

, Wynn Harmon
Wynn Harmon
Wynn Harmon , is an American stage and television actor.-Broadway:On Broadway he played The Detective in Porgy and Bess .-Off Broadway:Off-Broadway credits include:...

, Elizabeth Banks
Elizabeth Banks
Elizabeth Maresal Mitchell , known professionally as Elizabeth Banks, is an American actress. Banks had her film debut in the low-budget independent film Surrender Dorothy...

, Anna Belknap
Anna Belknap
Anna Belknap is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Detective Lindsay Monroe on CSI: NY.-Personal life:...

, Dileep Rao
Dileep Rao
Dileep A. Rao is an American actor who has appeared in feature films and television series. He starred in Sam Raimi's horror film Drag Me to Hell , James Cameron's science fiction film Avatar , and Christopher Nolan's thriller Inception .-Life and career:Rao was born in Los Angeles, California to...

, Marsha Mason
Marsha Mason
Marsha Mason is an American actress and television director.She received four Academy Award nominations as Best Actress for her performances in Cinderella Liberty, The Goodbye Girl, Chapter Two, and Only When I Laugh. She is also known for starring in the 1986 film Heartbreak Ridge.-Life:Mason was...

, Danny Glover
Danny Glover
Danny Lebern Glover is an American actor, film director, and political activist. Glover is perhaps best known for his role as Detective Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon film franchise.-Early life:...

, Isiah Whitlock, Jr.
Isiah Whitlock, Jr.
Isiah Whitlock Jr. is an American actor.He is most famous for his role on the HBO television series, The Wire as corrupt state senator Clay Davis. He also is notable for appearing in Spike Lee films She Hate Me and 25th Hour as Agent Amos Flood...

, Tom O'Brien
Tom O'Brien (actor)
Thomas Patrick "Tom" O'Brien is an American actor since the age of sixteen, having first trained at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, where he appeared in ACT's mainstage productions of The Holdup; and A Midsummer Night's Dream as Puck, opposite Annette Bening.O'Brien's feature...

, Anna Deavere Smith
Anna Deavere Smith
Anna Deavere Smith is an American actress, playwright, and professor. She is currently the artist in residence at the Center for American Progress.-Early life:...

, Omar Metwally
Omar Metwally
Omar Metwally is an American actor.Metwally was born in Queens, New York to an Egyptian father and a Dutch mother, and moved with the family to Orange County, California at age three where he was raised...

, Steven W. Bailey
Steven W. Bailey
Steven W. Bailey is an American actor.Bailey is best known for taking on the character of Steve Williams in the TV show My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance in 2004, and for playing the recurring character of Joe on Grey's Anatomy...

, and Anika Noni Rose
Anika Noni Rose
Anika Noni Rose is an American singer and actress known for her Tony Award winning performance in the Broadway production of Caroline, or Change and her starring roles in the films Dreamgirls and The Princess and the Frog....

. In addition to the MFA program, ACT offers training through the Studio A.C.T., the Summer Training Congress, and Young Conservatory programs. Alumni of these programs include Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage is an American actor, producer and director, having appeared in over 60 films including Raising Arizona , The Rock , Face/Off , Gone in 60 Seconds , Adaptation , National Treasure , Ghost Rider , Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , and...

, Teri Hatcher
Teri Hatcher
Teri Lynn Hatcher is an American actress, writer, and presenter. She is known for her television roles as Susan Mayer on the ABC comedy-drama series Desperate Housewives, and Lois Lane on the ABC comedy-drama series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman...

, Milo Ventimiglia
Milo Ventimiglia
Milo Anthony Ventimiglia is an American television actor best known for his role of Peter Petrelli on the TV series Heroes...

, Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder is an American actress. She made her film debut in the 1986 film Lucas. Ryder's first significant role came in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice as a goth teenager, which won her critical and commercial recognition...

, Camryn Manheim
Camryn Manheim
Camryn Manheim is an American actress known primarily for her roles as attorney Ellenor Frutt on ABC's The Practice and Delia Banks on CBS's Ghost Whisperer and as Elvis's mother, Gladys Presley in the 2005 mini-series Elvis....

, Darren Criss
Darren Criss
Darren Everett Criss is an American actor, singer-songwriter, musician, composer, and a founding member and co-owner of the theater company StarKid Productions. He currently portrays Blaine Anderson, an openly gay high school student, on the FOX television series Glee...

, and Chris Pine
Chris Pine
Christopher Whitelaw "Chris" Pine is an American actor. He has appeared in the romantic comedies The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement and Just My Luck , as well as the action films Smokin' Aces and Unstoppable . In 2009, he portrayed James T...

.

A.C.T.'s home in San Francisco is the eponymous American Conservatory Theater, previously known as the Columbia Theater and then the Geary Theater until being renamed in September 2006.

The first person to be given the title sound designer in regional theatre was Dan Dugan
Dan Dugan (audio engineer)
Dan Dugan is an American audio engineer, inventor, and nature sounds recordist. He was the first person to be called a sound designer, and he developed the first effective automatic microphone mixer: the automixer.-Early career:...

 at A.C.T. in the late 1960s. The term Sound Design
Sound design
Sound design is the process of specifying, acquiring, manipulating or generating audio elements. It is employed in a variety of disciplines including filmmaking, television production, theatre, sound recording and reproduction, live performance, sound art, post-production and video game software...

 was introduced to the film world when Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...

 directed (and for which his father, Carmine Coppola
Carmine Coppola
Carmine Coppola was an American composer, flautist, editor, musical director, and songwriter. Coppola was a composer and conductor who contributed to many of the musical scores in The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Godfather Part III, and Apocalypse Now directed by his son Francis Ford...

, arranged the music and Charlie Richmond was the sound designer) a production of Private Lives
Private Lives
Private Lives is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It focuses on a divorced couple who discover that they are honeymooning with their new spouses in neighbouring rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realise that they still have feelings for...

at A.C.T., while the final cut of the film The Godfather
The Godfather
The Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard...

was being edited in 1972.

Young Conservatory

A.C.T.'s Young Conservatory is an internationally recognized professional theater training program for youth through the ages of 19. It was founded by Luanne and Ross Graham in 1971. Successive YC directors include: Candace Birk, Sharon Newman, Linda Aldrich, and Susan Stauter. The program has been led since 1988 by the acclaimed Craig Slaight
Craig Slaight
Craig Slaight is an American director and author. He is currently the director of the Young Conservatory at A.C.T. in San Francisco, California. In 1989 he created the "New Plays" program to develop new stage plays that showed the world through the voice of the young. Mr...

, to whom many young actors credit with igniting a lifetime passion for all things dramatic. The Young Conservatory is geared at performing new works specifically for young actors, and has premiered plays and musicals by prolific authors such as Horton Foote
Horton Foote
Albert Horton Foote, Jr. was an American playwright and screenwriter, perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning screenplays for the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird and the 1983 film Tender Mercies, and his notable live television dramas during the Golden Age of Television...

 and Paul Zindel
Paul Zindel
Paul Zindel Jr. was an American playwright, author, and educator.-Early years:Zindel was born in Tottenville, Staten Island, New York to Paul Zindel,Sr., a policeman, and Beatrice Frank, a nurse; his sister, Betty Hagen, was a year and a half older than he. Paul Zindel, Sr...

. The conservatory members are also offered roles in the mainstage productions, most frequently A Christmas Carol, which is performed every winter.

San Francisco Symphony Recordings

According to Pristine Audio
Pristine Audio
Pristine Audio was founded in 2002 by Andrew Rose, then a BBC Radio sound engineer, as an audio transfer and restoration business.Following its relocation from the United Kingdom to France in 2004, the company began to concentrate on the restoration and remastering of historic classical music...

, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Alfred Hertz
Alfred Hertz
Alfred Hertz , a German conductor born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. As a child, he contracted infantile paralysis and walked with a cane after that....

, made a series of electrical recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company
Victor Talking Machine Company
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....

 on the stage of the theater in 1927. Pristine Audio has restored and reissued the 78 rpm recordings on CD.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK